The Dangerous Game We Played
by AffinityDarkness
Summary: Draco Malfoy: On the wrong side for the wrong reasons.  Hermione Granger: The one who changed his mind.  Set around HBP and DH


**Please read and review. Criticism is welcome, in fact I would like to know if you dont like it so that I can improve in my writing :)**

**Just a re-cap: The Final Battle happened on 2nd May, 1998 and December, 1996 is during their 6th year at Hogwarts. **

**_August, 2000_**

The old gate creaked as a gust of wind swept through the cemetery. A relentless cold draft that emphasized the cruel truth behind the crumbling stone heads and the browning leaves upon the ground.

Some headstones hardly hold their own; so old that the people lying beneath them wouldn't have a person alive left to remember their memory. The only thing that stays behind to prove their existence is the small area where they now lie, forever unmoving, forever forgotten.

The stepping stones that lead to the graves lay in the ground broken from the many mourners tredding on their surfaces. The only life is the big tree at the top of the hill and a young girl at a grave underneath.

The sounds of her sobs is caught and carried by the breeze, it echoes eerily off the surrounding tombstones. She kneels at the headstone of the grave she is staring at with salty eyes, her brown wavy hair flowing down her back and shoulders. She wipes away the crystal-like tears from her cheek and re-reads the gravestone. Hoping and praying she read wrong. Because he had to have made it. But she sees the same thing, the same name;

_Draco Lucius Malfoy_

_June 5, 1980 – May 2, 1998_

_On the wrong side, for the wrong reasons._

To a stranger this occurrence, this picture, would seem normal, a young girl crying over the grave of the boy she loves. But it isn't normal because what could be normal about Hermione Granger crying over the grave of Draco Malfoy?

**_December, 1996_**

"Do you come here to cry often?" The girl's voice startled Draco from his thoughts. He looked up from the basin he was clutching so fiercly it could snap. He looked into the mirror to see the reflection the girl standing behind him.

"If you had any sense of self-preservation, Granger, you would leave. Right now." He mustered up his worst glare but to his dismay, she didn't flinch, she smirked.

"You do realize this is the _girls _bathrooms, right?" She wiped the smirk off her face and replaced it with a look of pity. "What is it that has Draco Malfoy so scared? I know you're cowardly, and you cry, but that's all fanfare; your little act. But this…this is real." She slapped herself mentally because her pity turned to concern and that is not what she should be feeling for this devil re-incarnate. _But is he really? _

"Leave. Now!" He yelled at her ferociously. _Yes, maybe he is. _His breathing was shallow and ragged, the breath of someone recently shedding tears. He walked over to the wall and slid down it to sit with his knees pulled up to his chest.

"No. I don't think I will." She walked over to him and sat beside him.

"Get away from me you dirty mudblood." His voice held no conviction, he didn't mean it, it was habit, but somewhere deep down, he knew it had to be true.

Hermione stayed sitting, she took out her wand and conjured a knife.

"You know, I don't really want to die today, thank-you, I still have a short while left. Put it away." She slowly lifted the knife up to rest the tip on the palm of her left hand. " Look, Granger, I know things are bad, but come on. I didn't think of you as a cutter." He gasped as she pierced the skin of her palm and created a gash with the conjured knife. "Fuck Granger, you're more psychotic than I realized!" He yelled at her. Blood began to pour from the very deep wound.

"Do you see that?" She whispered as the blood dripped off her hand onto the tiles of the floor.

"What? The mass amounts of blood pouring out of your hand, yes, as a matter of fact I do. What in the Merlin's name is wrong with you?"

"Its red." She grabbed his hand before he could whip it away and cut it, he screamed.

"Holy shit, Granger!"He jumped up. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Look at it! Look at your hand! Look at the blood! What colour is it?" She yelled as she got up and walked towards him. He stood still, stunned. "Answer me! What colour is it?"

Throughout their five years of school, all the tormenting she endured (from Draco in particular), he had never seen Hermione Granger so passionately angry. She looked as if she had gone mad. For the first time in her presence, Draco Malfoy felt speechless, no whitty remarks left to hide behind.

"Its red." He said, dazed.

"Yes! Its red," She held up her left hand, now covered in blood, "and so is mine. It's not brown, it's red, just like yours." Her mask of anger disappeared as hot tears seared her eyes, betraying her. "Its red. Its all red. I'm not filthy, I'm human. My blood is not mud. I may be muggleborn, but that does not make me any less of a person, any less of a witch than any of your 'pureblood' friends. What does, however make you less of a person is to so readily put down others, to so readily hurt others. And until you learn that, _you_ are the one that's dirty." She wiped away the tears from her face. She healed her hand and walked towards Draco, he flinched as she grabbed his hand. She healed his hand, to his surprise. She looked up at him with his hand still in hers.

"Learn a bit of compassion, a bit of humanity, a bit of initiative to do what you want and to believe what you want. Maybe then, you wouldn't be crying in the girls bathroom because of the things you wish you could undo, the things you wish you didn't have to do at all." With that she let go of his hand and conjured a flower. She placed the flower into his healed, but still blood-stanied, hand.

"It's a white Chrysanthemum. They symbolize truth." She walked out and Draco stood there, staring down at his bloody hand and the clean, pure, white flower laying on it, an odd feeling of remorse sweeping over him.

_**December, 1997**_

_**H**_

_**Things are bad here. If this letter is infiltrated I will be placed on the very long que of Hogwarts students awaiting harsh and cruel punishments, or worse. I know you can't tell me anything, I know you can't contact me often and I know that I shouldn't even be sending this but I need to know you're okay. **_

_**I'm falling apart here, this charade I have to keep up is wearing me down. My arm burns constantly and all I see is torture and mayhem in these walls. This school is broken and I can't fix it on my own. If anyone ever finds out that my allegiance has switched, I, along with my family, will be killed.**_

_**I'm scared, H. I don't want you to come back here, it's dangerous but I know that sooner or later you will be back and I know the inevitable is coming, but I don't know if it's going to fix anything. I'm losing hope. **_

_**Send me back something, anything, so I know you're okay, at least for now. **_

_**Please stay safe, I need you alive.**_

_**D**_

Draco's eyes swept the area around him, searching for spies. He attached the letter to the tawny owl and let it go. He stepped out of the owlery and gave a nod to the death eater guarding the entrance hoping against hope that his letter will reach her without problems.

**_8 Days Later_**

Draco awoke to scratching at the window above his four-post. He groaned groggily. Something hit the curtain around the bed. "Let that bloody owl in, Draco! I'm trying to sleep." Blaise Zabini yelled from his bed across the room. Draco came to and quickly opened the window and let the bird in.

It held out its leg and he detached the delivery from it; a white Chrysanthemum and a small piece of parchment. On it was written:

_**D, **_

_**I'm okay. Everything will be okay, I can't promise that, but I have faith. **_

_**Don't risk yourself anymore than you need to. But keep pushing, keep trying. You do your part while I do mine. But please be careful because I need you alive just as you do me. **_

_**I will help you put the pieces back together when this is over, everyone will. Trust me when I say that you have done, you are doing, the right thing. **_

_**Don't go anywhere, you mean the world and more. **_

_**Love, H **_

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**Hey there readers :) **

**I would like to know what you think of this so far; did you like it? Hate it? Tell me your thoughts :) **

**Love, **

**AffinityDarkness**


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